Chapter 7 - THE KEY AROUND HER NECK
Lily had worn the silver key for eight years.
She had slept with it around her neck.
Carried it through college.
Worn it to job interviews.
Held it in her fist during her father’s funeral.
Thomas Bennett had given it to her the night before he died.
He had come home late.
His shirt had been wrinkled.
His hands had shaken when he poured himself a glass of water.
Lily remembered teasing him.
“You look like you robbed a bank.”
Thomas had smiled strangely.
“Nothing that dramatic.”
Then he had placed the key in her palm.
“Keep this.”
“For what?”
“You’ll know when you need it.”
She had rolled her eyes.
“Dad.”
“Promise me.”
Something in his voice had frightened her.
So she promised.
The next morning he left before sunrise.
By midnight, he was dead.
Now Adrian Blackwood stood inside an abandoned hospital telling Lily that little silver key could unlock a secret people had already killed to possess.
She touched it.
“What does it open?”
Adrian looked at Victor.
“A safe deposit vault.”
“Where?”
“Union Continental Bank.”
Victor frowned.
“That bank closed six years ago.”
“The public branches did.”
Adrian replied.
“The private trust division still operates beneath the old headquarters.”
Victor knew the building.
Every powerful family in Chicago did.
No sign identified what happened below street level.
“Who has access?”
Adrian looked at Lily.
“She does.”
Lily shook her head.
“I’ve never been there.”
“You don’t need to have been.”
“Thomas registered you as co-holder.”
Victor studied Adrian.
“How do you know all this?”
“Because I helped him.”
Lily’s gaze snapped toward him.
“You helped my father?”
“Yes.”
“Before or after you let everyone think you were dead?”
Adrian accepted the anger.
“Before.”
“Then why didn’t you help him when someone killed him?”
The question cut deeper.
Adrian looked away.
“Because I was afraid.”
Lily laughed bitterly.
“My father died because you were afraid?”
“No.”
Adrian replied.
“Your father died because he trusted someone he shouldn’t have.”
“Who?”
Adrian looked at Victor.
“Dominic.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Lily’s stomach dropped.
“Your consigliere?”
“Yes.”
Adrian continued.
“Thomas gave Dominic a copy of the evidence and asked him to deliver it to Victor’s father if anything happened.”
Victor stared.
“My father?”
“Thomas still believed Salvatore could be reasoned with.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“He was wrong.”
Lily stepped closer.
“Did Dominic betray him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I said Thomas trusted Dominic.”
Adrian interrupted.
“I did not say Dominic ordered the hit.”
Victor crossed his arms.
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that after Thomas died, the copy disappeared.”
“And Raymond somehow learned enough about the original ledger to start hunting for it.”
Victor understood.
“You think Dominic handed it over.”
“I think someone did.”
Silence.
Lily looked at the key again.
“If my father registered me as co-holder, why didn’t the bank contact me?”
Adrian’s face softened.
“Because Thomas put a twenty-five-year secrecy clause on the account unless you presented the key voluntarily.”
“I was seventeen.”
“He was protecting you.”
“By giving me something killers wanted?”
“No.”
Adrian said.
“By making it look meaningless.”
Lily closed her fist around the pendant.
Victor’s phone buzzed.
A new message.
Another photograph of Ethan.
This time someone held a clock beside him.
11:06 a.m.
Below the image were two words.
TICK TOCK.
Victor’s face became stone.
“We go to the bank.”
Lily nodded.
“No.”
Victor looked at her.
“No what?”
“No convoy.”
“No men.”
“Whoever has Ethan is watching.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“And you suggest what?”
“We act normal.”
Adrian almost smiled.
“There’s nothing normal about any of this.”
Lily ignored him.
“We return to the mansion.”
“We let whoever is watching think we’re still searching for Ethan.”
“Then tonight we leave through another route.”
Gabriel frowned.
“You’re assuming the estate is watched.”
Lily looked at him.
“They knew Victor came home early.”
“They knew where I hid the recordings.”
“They knew about my key.”
“They knew Ethan’s hospital room.”
“Of course they’re watching.”
Victor stared at her.
Again, she sounded like Thomas Bennett’s daughter.
They returned to the mansion at noon.
Victor made a show of rage.
Cars came and went.
Men spread across Chicago.
Phone calls were deliberately made on lines Victor now assumed were compromised.
He ordered searches of Vale properties.
He sent crews toward the harbor.
He allowed rumors to spread that Roman Vale had kidnapped his son.
Meanwhile, Lily sat inside Elena’s old studio with Adrian.
“Tell me about my father.”
She said.
Adrian looked at her.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything he didn’t tell me.”
“That could take years.”
“Start with why he worked for the Blackwoods.”
Adrian leaned against the dusty desk.
“Money.”
Lily almost laughed.
“That simple?”
“At first.”
Adrian replied.
“Your mother was sick.”
Lily’s expression changed.
Her mother had died when Lily was nine.
“Dad said insurance covered most of it.”
“It didn’t.”
Adrian said.
“Salvatore paid.”
“In return, Thomas handled the books.”
Lily looked away.
“He hated owing anyone.”
“I know.”
“Then why stay after Mom died?”
“Because by then he knew too much.”
Lily understood.
“My father was trapped.”
“Yes.”
Adrian’s voice softened.
“And he spent years trying to create a safe way out for both of you.”
Lily touched the key.
“Did Victor know him?”
“Not well.”
Adrian said.
“Victor was being trained for the part of the business Salvatore intended him to inherit.”
Victor entered at that moment.
“I’m standing right here.”
Adrian shrugged.
“You were spoiled.”
Victor almost smiled.
Then he remembered Ethan.
The brief warmth vanished.
Lily noticed.
“Did my father trust Victor?”
She asked Adrian.
Adrian looked at his brother.
“More than he trusted most Blackwoods.”
Victor seemed surprised.
“Why?”
“Because you were the only one who ever returned money you didn’t earn.”
Victor frowned.
“When?”
“You were twenty-two.”
Adrian replied.
“Dad ordered Thomas to hide a loss by charging it to a legitimate company.”
“You refused to sign.”
Victor remembered.
Barely.
A warehouse account.
A falsified invoice.
He had thought it insignificant.
Thomas apparently had not.
“Small things tell you what men do when larger things arrive.”
Adrian said.
Lily looked at Victor differently.
He noticed.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Decide I’m a good man because of one accounting dispute.”
Lily’s mouth tightened.
“I wasn’t.”
He almost believed her.
That evening, Victor visited Serena.
She sat in an upstairs bedroom guarded by two women from his mother’s old security detail.
Victor entered alone.
Serena looked tired.
“Did you find him?”
“No.”
A flicker of satisfaction crossed her face.
Victor caught it.
“You know where Ethan is.”
“No.”
“You know who has him.”
“I know who probably has him.”
“Raymond?”
Serena looked toward the window.
“Raymond never touches anything himself.”
“Who does?”
She said nothing.
Victor stepped closer.
“Roman?”
Still nothing.
“Dominic?”
Serena’s eyes moved.
That was enough.
Victor sat across from her.
“Why did you hurt Ethan?”
Serena’s face hardened.
“I didn’t.”
“I saw you.”
“You saw one moment.”
“I saw my son on the floor.”
“You saw me trying to keep him from crawling toward broken glass.”
Victor stared at her.
“And Lily?”
“She attacked me.”
Victor’s expression did not change.
Serena sighed.
“You’ve already decided.”
“No.”
Victor replied.
“That’s why you’re still breathing.”
The words chilled the room.
Serena studied him.
“Do you know what Lily came into your house to do?”
“To care for Ethan.”
Serena laughed.
“No.”
“She came looking for her father’s ledger.”
Victor’s gaze sharpened.
“She didn’t know it existed.”
“Maybe.”
Serena leaned forward.
“But ask yourself why Thomas Bennett’s daughter applied to work in the home of the man whose father owned him.”
Victor did not answer.
Serena smiled.
“You think coincidence brought her here?”
Victor hated that the question had weight.
Later that night, he found Lily in the kitchen.
She was packing bottles of water into a small bag.
“We leave in ten minutes.”
Victor said.
Lily nodded.
Then he asked.
“Why did you apply for this job?”
She stopped.
Victor watched her.
“Tell me the truth.”
Lily slowly set down the bottle.
“I saw Serena’s photograph.”
Victor went still.
“Where?”
“In an old box that belonged to my father.”
“You told me you knew nothing.”
“I knew nothing about the ledger.”
Lily replied.
“But I found a photograph of Serena three months before I applied here.”
Victor stared.
“What was she doing in the photograph?”
“Standing beside my father.”
The answer changed everything.
Victor’s voice lowered.
“When was it taken?”
“The week before he died.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know what it meant.”
“You entered my home under false pretenses.”
“I entered your home because Serena was suddenly engaged to Victor Blackwood and I recognized her as the woman standing beside my father days before his death.”
Lily’s eyes filled.
“I wanted answers.”
Victor’s face became unreadable.
“And Ethan?”
“At first, he was part of the job.”
The words hurt him.
Lily continued.
“Then he became the reason I stayed.”
Victor said nothing.
“I love that little boy.”
She whispered.
“I would have left months ago if I didn’t.”
Victor looked at her for a long time.
Then he held out his hand.
“The key.”
Lily instinctively covered the pendant.
“No.”
“We don’t know what’s inside the vault.”
“It belongs to my father.”
“And my son was kidnapped because of it.”
Lily’s jaw tightened.
“We open it together.”
Victor stared.
Then nodded.
“Together.”
At 11:40 p.m., they left the mansion through an old service tunnel Adrian remembered from childhood.
Only Victor, Lily, Adrian, and one trusted driver went.
Union Continental’s old headquarters stood dark in the financial district.
A private security officer was waiting underground.
Lily presented the key.
Her hands shook.
The manager checked the serial number.
Then he looked at her.
“Ms. Bennett.”
Lily froze.
“You were expected.”
“By whom?”
“Your father.”
Her throat tightened.
“He left instructions.”
The manager led them through two steel doors.
Vault 317 waited at the end of a narrow corridor.
Lily inserted the key.
A green light appeared.
The door opened.
Inside sat no ledger.
Only a wooden box.
Lily lifted the lid.
A hard drive lay inside.
Three photographs.
A sealed letter.
And an old digital recorder.
The letter was addressed to Lily.
She opened it.
Her father’s handwriting filled the page.
Lily, if you are reading this, I failed to come home.
Her vision blurred.
Victor stood beside her.
She kept reading.
Do not trust the person who brings you here.
Lily stopped.
Adrian’s face changed.
Victor’s hand moved slowly toward his jacket.
Lily read the next line.
Especially if that person tells you his name is Adrian Blackwood.
Silence swallowed the vault.
Lily looked up.
May you like
Adrian stood six feet away.
And for the first time, he was smiling.
